Great Lakes: IRIN Update 251, 9/18/97

IRIN Emergency Update No. 251 on the Great Lakes (Thursday,
18 September 97)

UGANDA: UNICEF campaigns against LRA child abductions

In a coordinated campaign backed by UNICEF, Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch-Africa today (Thursday)
released reports condemning the kidnapping and murder
of children by the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA). The human rights groups charge that 8,000
to 10,000 children have been abducted in the past two
years. The children, some as young as 11-years-old,
are subjected to a regime of extreme and arbitrary
violence. Their deliberate brutalisation has involved
forced participation in the killing of other children.
Girls are allocated to LRA commanders as sex slaves.
Those caught attempting to escape have been tortured
and beaten to death. The LRA is provided with base
camps in southern Sudan by the Khartoum government.
In return, the LRA is used to battle the rebel Sudan
People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and to destabalise
neighbouring Uganda, the reports allege. The abducted
children, after rudimentary military training, are
compelled to fight. Some 3,000 to 5,000 children are
believed to remain in rebel captivity and form the
backbone of the LRA.

UNICEF's Executive Director Carol Bellamy said in a
statement today, "the evidence of these unspeakable
acts is overwhelming." Bellamy called on the Sudanese
government to immediately denounce the LRA. UNICEF
supports the demand by the two rights groups that the
UN Special Rapporteur on Children in Situations of
Armed Conflict investigate abuses by the LRA. "There
is never just cause for the death or torture of a child,"
Bellamy said. "Just as there are calls for an
investigation into the alleged human rights violations
in the Great Lakes region, so the international community
must exercise the same conscience towards the children
in Uganda."

Khartoum cuts ties with Kony, press claims

The Ugandan press has alleged that LRA leader Joseph
Kony has fallen out with Khartoum, the Kenyan 'Daily
Nation' reported today. Military sources in northern
Uganda claimed last month that Sudan had cut supplies
to LRA base camps, forcing Kony and some 300 rebels
into Uganda. Their arrival sparked a series of clashes
with the army in Kitgum district. Some 50 child soldiers
were reportedly rescued after one battle. On Monday,
quoting a captured LRA intelligence officer, the state-owned
'New Vision' said that Kony and his followers were
attempting to escape into Kenya. Since March, 800 rebels
have surrendered to the army, the private 'Monitor'
reported on Wednesday.

Border security tightened

The 'New Vision' said on Tuesday that the government
of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had deployed
troops along the Ugandan and Burundi borders. The newspaper
noted it was not clear whether the deployment was to
suppress ethnic clashes in eastern DRC or to contain
the Ugandan rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) operating
out of the region. Meanwhile, the Ugandan army claimed
to have killed an estimated 20 ADF rebels in a weekend
ambush in the western district of Bundibugyo. The rebels
were believed to have been part of a group that attacked
a displaced camp at the trading post of Nyahuka, 10
kms from the DRC border, last week.

Meanwhile, a battalion of Ugandan troops trained as
peacekeepers by a US special forces team held their
passing-out parade yesterday. The 770 soldiers from
the 3rd "Suicide" battalion will form part
of Washington's so-called African Crisis Response Initiative.
Reacting to concerns that the training programme amounted
to provocation of Sudan, President Yoweri Museveni
said: "we have been fighting Sudan for a long
time without the Americans," the 'New Vision'
reported.

BURUNDI: Resettlement suspended

The governor of Burundi's northern Kayanza province
has suspended the dismantling of regroupment camps
and the return of people to their communes, humanitarian
sources report. The governor indicated that increased
rebel activity, particularly in the Butaganzwa and
Rango communes, was responsible for the freeze on the
programme. To date, seven camps have been dismantled
and some 32,500 people returned to their homes out
of a total regrouped population in the province of
almost 90,000. It is believed the process will not
restart until the security situation has stabilised.

RWANDA: DRC refugees settle in Mudende camp

The pace of refugees crossing the DRC border from Goma
to Rwanda has slowed. According to UNHCR, 3,408 Tutsi
Congolese fleeing violence in Masisi entered Rwanda
between Saturday and yesterday. They are believed to
have come from two sites in Goma where ICRC had registered
some 4,000 internally displaced people. The refugees
are settling in Mudende camp, in northern Rwanda, which
last month was attacked by Hutu rebels in a raid that
killed more than 130 people. The camp now holds some
11,000 refugees. Meanwhile, some 100 soldiers were
arrested in Goma between 14-15 September under a new
campaign by the national army to improve security in
the area, local radio reported.

TANZANIA: Hungry leave their farms

Hungry farmers are abandoning their villages in parts
of rural Tanzania in the search for food, a spokesman
for the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT) told IRIN.
Some are hiring out their labour to "relatively
rich peasants but even they don't have much to offer,"
the spokesman said. Drought has wiped out an estimated
30 percent of Tanzania's expected 1996-97 cereal production.
In localised cases, the situation is far worse. In
Dodoma in the central region, some households have
only been able to harvest little more than a bag of
sorghum to last a family until the next season. "In
the rural areas people have resorted to eating wild
fruits," the spokesman said. "We know of
cases of people dying from eating the wrong wild fruits."

Livestock prices have crashed as farmers sell off their
animals. A cow which previously fetched US $100, is
now exchanged for a bag of maize - which currently
costs between US $20-40. In a normal season the price
of maize is around US $10. The government has responded
to the crisis by waiving import duties on food imports.
According to CCT, the local implementing partners of
the NGO consortium Action by Churches Together (ACT),
poverty will hamper access to food for the increasing
numbers of vulnerable people. There is also concern
over the inadequacy of Tanzania's transport infrastructure
to reach some of the country's more remote regions.

Although this season's "short rains" (September-January)
have begun in some areas, "tropical rains are
very unpredictable" the CCT spokesman said. He
feared a repeat of last year which only achieved 25
percent of average rainfall.

CONGO: Fighting continues

Congo's warring factions, ignoring a ceasefire appeal
by African regional leaders, pounded each other's positions
with artillery on Wednesday for the third consecutive
day, AFP reported. The rival forces of President Pascal
Lissouba and Denis Sassou Nguesso are also believed
to have brought reinforcements into the battered capital
of Brazzaville. A joint communique issued on Monday
from a summit of seven African heads of state in Libreville,
Gabon, called on both sides to commit themselves to
a definitive ceasefire in the three-month conflict.
But neither man signed an accord and Lissouba refused
to attend the two-day meeting.

Nairobi, 18 September 1997. 15:00 gmt [ENDS]

[Via the UN DHA Integrated Regional Information Network.
The material contained in this communication may not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations
or its agencies. UN DHA IRIN Tel: +254 2 622123 Fax:
+254 2 622129 e-mail: irin@dha.unon.org for more information.
If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item,
please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations
or extracts from this report should include attribution
to the original sources mentioned, not simply "DHA".]